Special and Named Printed Collections in the National Library of Scotland

LLOYD COLLECTION

The collection of books on mountaineering, mainly relating to the Alps, bequeathed by Robert Wylie Lloyd (1886-1958), a former Vice-President of the Alpine Club, whose interests also included entomology and the collecting of objets d?art (his book-plate incorporates a beetle and a climber?s ice-axe). It contains c. 2,000 printed items, books and journals, mostly in English (but including c. 300 in French, over 100 in German, and c. 20 in Italian), while a number of the earlier works are in Latin. Books in the collection published before the middle of the 18th century deal with the history, topography and antiquities of Switzerland, while the works from the second half of the century concentrate on the natural history of the country, chiefly geology and physical geography, especially glaciers; however, the majority of the books are of the 19th and the 20th century. The contemporary narratives of the first ascents of Mont Blanc are complemented by the numerous 19th-century accounts of subsequent ascents and of climbing expeditions throughout the Alps. The collection also includes guidebooks to Switzerland, a number of fine colour plate books of the Alps, literary works, runs of Alpine journals and year-books. The 10 manuscripts include several illustrated journals of Alpine tours, as well as personal correspondence. To complement his books, Lloyd also collected Swiss prints, which he bequeathed, along with a collection of pre-1885 English watercolours, to the British Museum where they are available in the Department of Prints & Drawings.

Mountaineering: Catalogue of the Graham Brown and Lloyd Collections, Edinburgh: National Library of Scotland, 1994 (catalogue of the printed books in the two collections plus microfiche updates of the Graham Brown collection).
Shelf Catalogue of the Lloyd Collection of Alpine Books, Boston, 1964.
The manuscripts are described and indexed in Vol. IV of the Library?s Catalogue of Manuscripts.